


Dark, Vile, False

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 08:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18311687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: Father said anything would be better than Shu Han. Even when the Fjerdans came, he said it would be better.Father doesn’t lie, but he might have been wrong.





	Dark, Vile, False

“Very well.”

You don’t understand what comes next, but your father does. You speak only snips and shreds of Fjerdan; you speak Kerch, because this was always the goal, the Kerch, the people whose love for profit makes your abilities irrelevant. Father speaks Fjerdan. He understands. You read the terror in his eyes the heartbeat before two men come for you, their hands wrapping like steel around your arms.

“No!”

You don’t speak. Not aloud. You look from them, to your father, to them.

Father.

Father?

“I need the boy.”

“You are wasting our time, Yul-Bayur—”

“I need him,” he insists. “I cannot make parem without my son.”

Brum’s eyes gleam cold. He lives in this awful place. The place lives inside him, too. Father said anything would be better than Shu Han. Even when the Fjerdans came, he said it would be better.

Father doesn’t lie. What you are, what he is, you both told so many lies to everyone else, he swore to be honest to you so you would knows where reality falls.

Father doesn’t lie, but he might have been wrong.

“Indeed?” asks Brum. He holds up a hand, enough that the steely grip on your arms loosens.

Father stands taller. “Yes. I need him.”

Something writhes inside your chest. Something dark and vile writhes inside your chest.

“My son is a chemist.”

He is not a man who withholds his compliments. He tells you when you excel, has told you before: you are smart, you have a mind for chemistry.

“He is brilliant.”

You’re not.

It’s not an insult. It’s not so bad. You know because you once burned up your notebook in frustration, because a brilliant boy would have mastered this by now. You were frightened that day. It frightens you when you lose your control.

Father is not a man who withholds his compliments, but not a man who lies, either. He admits you are not brilliant, but genius, he says, is not in one’s natural gifts but one’s hard work. You work hard.

“I worked years on parem without success until I had my son beside me. The breakthrough is as much his as mine.”

Brum raises an eyebrow, regarding you coolly. You want to shrink, but he might think Father lies. Father doesn’t lie. Brum is frightening. So you stand tall while the writhing thing lashes its tail in your chest.

“He is a brilliant chemist, you say?” Brum asks.

Father nods. “I taught him everything I know.”

“Did you.”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Release the boy,” Brum instructs his brutes.

You barely realized your feet were off the floor until they hit the ground. You stumble, touch the places where the bruises will bloom. You do not run to Father now—because you are nearly grown up, but also because, because as the vile pulsing in your chest promises, you will have plenty of time.

Jarl Brum draws his pistol and puts a bullet through Father’s head.

The brute-men grab you again. What were you going to do? Attack? Fall? Go to him? They don’t know. You don’t know. Only that the thing on the floor is not Father. The thing on the floor is not Father. The thing on the floor and the floor and Brum and the walls all blur and the tears sting cold on your face.

Jarl Brum holsters his pistol.

The hope in your chest stops writhing. It coils up and shrivels into death.

You knew it was vile.

You knew it was false.

“We have wasted too much time on lies. Now that we have the real scientist behind jurda parem, we will see progress. Take him to the laboratory.”

You don’t fight them when they take you from the room. Your eyes stray again and again to the thing on the floor and your mind doesn’t understand why since it does not matter. You wonder where Father is. He left. He disappeared and you wonder where he went.

You’re lying on the cot when you realize it. You will never make parem for Fjerda. How can they think to force you? They bribed Father with visits. Took you from your cell to make him compliant. Struck you once, only once, because Father understood the threat and never needed it repeated. You never blamed him, not for any of it.

Who is left that you love? You will not work for them.

They have taken everything.

They have left you alone.

All you must do now is wait. Someone will come for you soon enough. Someone will come. Someone will kill you soon enough.


End file.
